


A Broken Knight

by CaptainTarthister



Series: The Affair [5]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Cheating, Developing Relationship, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Miscarriage, Older Woman/Younger Man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-22 03:35:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7418233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainTarthister/pseuds/CaptainTarthister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Jaime and Brienne's relationship grows, they have to confront and accept certain truths about each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Run to You

**Author's Note:**

> Flashbacks are coming, also some Jaime AND Oberyn POV.

_Two weeks after the events in Part Three, Chapter Five: A Bitter Taste_

 The Sapphire Isle

Selwyn heard the heavy footsteps dragged across the ceiling as he stood in the kitchen cooking breakfast. The footsteps shuffled onward, disappearing briefly before they continued toward the stairs, getting louder and clearer the closer they approached. He quickly flipped the pancakes, watching them turn a soft, golden brown as Brienne stood at the door, yawning sleepily. Her pale hair hung limp and dry around her cheeks. Her swollen eyes told him she was probably crying in her sleep.

“Good morning, Dad,” she murmured, pressing a lazy kiss on his cheek before she went to the coffeemaker. It was still brewing the coffee so she just stared at it, her sapphire eyes dull and unfocused. 

When father and daughter sat down to eat, Selwyn snuck glances at her. Brienne was more pale, and always wore a sleepy, tired expression on her face but that was understandable. The loss of his grandchild crushed the heart and he couldn’t imagine what she was going through. He always thought she was tough as nails but not this time. She seemed a dove with a broken wing.

Broken as Brienne was, he agreed with her decision to recover in Tarth. Tarth was home and comfort. Tarth was the presence of her father. Selwyn had not had the opportunity to confront Oberyn but from the way Brienne had acted coolly toward him when he arrived at the hospital one day after was enough indication of her displeasure. She wouldn’t let him touch her, not even to assist her. He had left the couple at some point to get himself coffee and had stood behind the door, listening to them argue. 

_“I want to go home,” Brienne said._  
“That’s where you should be now, yes.”  
“No. I’m going home with my Dad.”  
“Brienne, you’re probably not fit to travel yet—“  
“I can not be in that house, alone, in that bed, alone. You won’t be there, why should I be?”  
“That’s unfair.”  
“I lost my baby. What do you call that?” Silence met her question. At the next beat, she declared, “I’m going. You’re not stopping me.” 

Since they’d arrived, Oberyn had been besieging them with calls. Brienne refused to talk to him, leaving Selwyn to deal with his goodson. Oberyn only stopped when Selwyn demanded that he give Brienne space to think. “She left you. What makes you think she wants to be reminded of you now?” He pointed out. 

Loss was something the Tarths were familiar with. First was dear, wonderful, Rhyla, Brienne’s mother. Cancer claimed her when Brienne was thirteen. After her funeral, Brienne had retreated into herself. Selwyn had to realize that when his daughter mourned, she did it on her own. She didn’t want to be held, she didn’t want to cry. What she did was run every morning, go snorkeling, throw herself into work. It was a testament to her tenacity.

Since Selwyn had retired, he had an active social life. He spent morning until afternoon reading then getting dressed to walk to the neighborhood bar and talk and drink with his friends from the force, both retired or close to. While he did remember how his daughter had mourned before, he thought to still ask if she would like to join him. Brienne wouldn’t and said she’d much rather be by herself. She spent time reading too but she mostly lost herself in long walks at the beach. He also heard old songs from her room at night.

Selwyn was in touch with Margaery and Jaime.  
Margaery had been trying to call Brienne to ask how she was but told Selwyn she hadn’t been getting answers. Jaime told him the same thing. When Selwyn asked her, she turned red and admitted to having turned off her phone, determined to cloak herself in isolation. 

“Sweetheart, your friends are worried. They have a right to know how you are,” he admonished her gently. “They love you.”

Brienne talked to Margaery briefly. She waited for a few days before talking to Jaime.

She called him one evening. Selwyn was out. Brienne sat in the porch, a glass of wine on the table. The sky was a carpet of deep vermillion streaked with gray. A fresh, salty breeze drifted from the sea. She stared at Jaime’s number glowing bright from her phone then pressed it. He answered on the first ring.

“I’ve been worried,” he told her when she said hello.

“I’m with my Dad.”

“So he said. But I’d rather hear it from you. What are you doing now?”

“Nothing. Talking to you.”

“Ouch, wench,” Jaime groaned. “I may not be the most stimulating person around but I wouldn’t think talking to me amounts to nothing. We’re only ten seconds in.”

She smiled. 

Margaery tend to mother her and during their last conversation, she had been in full-on Mother Hen mode. Brienne was grateful for her concern but she didn’t need that right now. She wanted to talk. She wanted to be treated as someone who had something terrible happened but was still normal. Selwyn and Margaery seemed to be walking on eggshells, and quick to leap into action if she showed just the tiniest amount of pleasure over something, both intent on spoiling her. Not Jaime, however.

“How long will you be there?”

She shrugged. “Another week, maybe. Or two weeks more. I’m not really thinking of what’s going on over there right now.”

“Yet you’re talking to me.”

“My father told me to assure you I haven’t rolled up under some rock and died.”

“That I know you didn’t do. That’s going to take an epic-sized rock, first of all. I suggest a cave."

“What the fuck are you talking about? I’m only an inch taller than you.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got broader shoulders, bigger hands, longer legs.”

“My hands,” she growled, “are not bigger than yours.”

“Hard to determine when you’re there and I’m here. But whatever. Glad to know you’re alive, wench.”

“I won’t go away that easily.”

“You shouldn’t.” Jaime’s voice was suddenly gentle.

She tensed.

As if sensing her discomfort, he coughed and said, “I got a bunch of Edith Piaf records today. Reminded me of you.”

She didn’t know what to make of that, only that she knew it wasn’t a bad thing. Far from it. “I remind you of the little sparrow?”

“You’re more of a falcon.” He said and she could tell he was grinning. “And you’re a wench.”

“My name is—“

“I know, I know. Wench is just easier to remember.”

“No one uses that word anymore.”

“I do. Am I no one?”

“You know what I mean. You’re betraying your age, Lannister.”

“And you are betraying yourself as a philistine. You have no appreciation for archaic, romantic language. That’s art, wench. You work in a fucking museum. You of all people should have taste.”

Brienne laughed. 

She tried stopping herself from laughing. It was so wrong, so, so wrong but she had no control over her body. It felt like she was breathing for the first time. Unhinged.

“Wench,” Jaime said with a tenderness she had not heard from him when her laugh dissolved into giggles and gasps.

“Brienne!” She exclaimed.

“So,” he said. “Two more weeks before I see you?”

Brienne looked at the phone and said the first words that hit her: “Maybe not.”

Then she downed the entire goblet of wine.

 

 

Tyrion Lannister and Bronn Blackwater sat at the foot of Jaime’s bed, watching as he threw clothes in a duffel bag, murmuring to himself, arguing with himself. They exchanged a look before Tyrion cleared his throat.

“Explain again why you’re leaving,” he said to his brother. “You don’t just take off, Jaime.”

“I need a break,” Jaime said, pulling open his drawer and pulling out three rolls of socks. He pushed them inside the bag then returned to the dresser to retrieve a fourth one.

“Don’t fuck with us, come on,” Bronn told him good-naturedly. He was Jaime’s best friend. “Out with it.”

Jaime narrowed his eyes at them then went to his closet. “A friend needs me. So I’m going.”

“Which friend is this? I’m the only fucking friend you’ve got. You weren’t there when I needed you regarding Melisandre,” Bronn told him.

“Melisandre who set fire to your clothes?” Tyrion asked.

“Also split the coffee table in half with her bare hands,” Bronn added. “And that’s just because she caught me checking out a really nice rack. Had to dump the bitch after what she did.”

Tyrion grinned. “Give me her number before you leave, will you?” 

Bronn rolled his eyes and demanded to Jaime again, “So, who’s this friend?”

“Bronn’s your only friend, true,” Tyrion said.

Jaime shoved four shirts, two sweaters, three pairs of jeans in the bag then underwear. “It’s Brienne. You’ve met her.” 

“Tall with pretty eyes, ugly?” Bronn said. Jaime shot him a warning look.

“Call her ugly again and I’ll have you wearing your teeth as a necklace.”

“Jaime Lannister threatening his best friend over a woman,” Tyrion said with exaggerated thoughtfulness. “I think I just witnessed history.”

“Fuck off, both of you.” Jaime growled. 

“You’re actually crossing the sea to answer a booty call,” Tyrion pointed out. “Brother, you don’t need to venture that far. You don’t even need to leave your fucking shop. That assistant of yours—what’s her name?”

“Pia. She’d love to have your fingers up her twat, that’s for sure.”Brown supplied. "Can I fuck her?"

Jaime zipped his bag shut and sighed loudly. “You’re welcome to her.” He narrowed his eyes. “And I’m not answering a booty call or however you call it. She needs a friend.”

“She needs your cock,” Bronn said bluntly.

Jaime actually advanced toward him. Tyrion, seeing the danger, threw his four-foot-five-inch body between his brother and his best friend, who was still lounging on the bed and clueless.

“Look, it’s not my business to tell you fuckheads but Brienne lost her baby, alright? Her husband’s never there for her, her best friend smothers her. Her father treats her like porcelain. She needs me to treat her like a normal person.” Jaime snapped.

His revelation got the intended effect. Tyrion looked positively shocked and Bronn paled. The two men looked at each other and Tyrion stammered, “Jaime, we’re so sorry.”

"Should we send her a fruit basket or something?"

 

“I’ll give her your regards. And fuck you. She and I are friends, that’s it. We’re never going to fuck.” Jaime sniffed under his arm. He smelled alright.

“Ah,shit.” Bronn shook his head. “You really know nothing, don’t you?”

“Tread carefully. I can still take back my offer to have you in charge of my shop,” Jaime warned.

Tyrion crossed his short arms and said, “I have to say I agree with this one,” he said, tilting his head toward Bronn.

“What? What did I just say?” Jaime demanded.

“You just broke like, the number one rule between friends.”

“Which is?”

“Never say you’re never going to fuck,” Bronn told him, “because the exact opposite will happen.”

“Fuck each other and your friendship’s fucked,” Tyrion added.

“And the shit you’re in for depends on how many times you fuck. Fuck once, you won’t talk about it. Fuck twice—“

“I get it, I get it, I get it. And no. We are not going to fuck.” Jaime glared at them, shouldered his bag, and flipped them the bird. “I do hope you get fucked in the ass, you assholes.”

"Hold on," Tyrion dug in his pocket and threw a gleaming strip in the air toward him. Jaime had to half-dive to catch it. He glared at the strip of condoms in his hands then at his brother. 

"What the actual--Tyrion, she's not even my type." 

Bronn sighed. "And that's the second. Never say she's not your type. You really _are_ going to fuck her."


	2. The Maiden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oberyn and Brienne in the beginning.

_University of Westeros  
Eleven years ago_

“Fuck the gods above. Baelish, quit using my deodorant!” Oberyn Martell growled at his roommate, who was a hunched form still fast asleep under the blanket. He glared at the empty canister and threw it at him, smirking as Petyr Baelish jerked and yelped. His dark head peeped out of the blanket and he snapped, “Fine. You don’t have to be prissy fag about it.”

“I fucking can’t believe you, man,” Oberyn complained as he checked the contents of his bath caddy. Soap, check, shampoo, check, razor, check, aftershave, check. “You’re rolling in dough and you steal my deodorant, my condoms, my underwear. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Can’t be bothered to shop. Don’t worry, I’ll replace them as soon as,” Petyr told him and drew the blanket over his head again. 

Oberyn glanced at him through the mirror. “Dude, it’s Thursday. Don’t you have Professor Varys first thing?”

“I’m sleeping in. Shut up.”

He rolled his eyes then proceeded to undress. He shook out his towel and wrapped it around his lean waist.

Classes had started two weeks ago but it still felt like he was running downhill and couldn’t be spared to look back. He was a senior now, so he attributed the mad pace to that. He just wished things weren’t so fast all the time. It was his last year before the real world came calling. It would be nice to have a moment or two to savour things.

Unfortunately, Oberyn knew little about enjoying the little moments. His schedule was always packed. This year he was the RA of Tyrell Hall, making him responsible for every fucking resident here. The upperclassmen were the easiest to handle—by this time they knew some appropriate, civilized behaviour. The sophomores swung between truly sane to batshit escapees from a mental institution. The freshmen were twice as that, high on their first college experience, impressionable idiots. They were basically five-year-olds on a sugar high let loose in the playpen.

Aside from dorm responsibilities, Oberyn also worked as a bartender in Stag Alley, a bar whose clientele were mainly students from University of Westeros and nearby Kings College. That being said, the tips were lousy and just about supplemented his personal income. Oberyn’s scholarship covered tuition and dorm but not books and certainly not his allowance. He needed every money he could get. When he had a free weekend, he mowed lawns.

Oberyn rechecked the contents of his bath caddy once again, shot the slumbering Baelish another withering look then let himself out.  
The hallway was packed. It seemed everyone had a class this morning and people were either clad in towels or robes, with only very few dressed and hurrying out. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the women. They smelled nice whether they’ve showered or not but they always took so long in the bathroom. And when they were done they dried their hair in the bathroom, sometimes they even plucked their eyebrows or did other things there that shattered every teenaged boy fantasy he’d had about them. Oberyn was a clueless freshman traumatized by sound of hair ripped off skin as a woman waxed her legs next to him as he brushed his teeth. To think he expected it to be wet boobs and wet cunts that would shock him.

As he strolled down the hallway, girls smiled at him, guys gave him high-fives or mock-punched him on the shoulder. The door of 48E opened and a definite hush fell on the crowd as a very pretty brunette with natural gold highlights stepped out. Her eyes were big and brown, her face a small oval. She was clearly unaware of her effect on the people around her, girls and guys alike looking at her admiringly. 

Well, she was beautiful, Oberyn admitted to himself and realizing that he had paused mid-stride. Wearing only a towel and holding a pink caddy, her feet in rubber flip-flops, Margaery Tyrell was a goddess. She was a freshman but due to her stunning looks, she had become quickly popular. After it was confirmed that she was single, the next speculation was whether she was a virgin or not. People really astounded Oberyn sometimes, and made him wonder if college was as smart a place as it was often purported to be. 

While everyone else drooled at Margaery sashaying down the hallway, Oberyn began to walk. As he did, 48E opened again. This time, he looked.

He only knew she was female because she was rooming with Margaery and those gorgeous blue eyes could simply not be a man’s, no way. But the rest of her screamed male and coarse—the unruly, pale blond hair that glowed white in the harsh light of the hallway, the big, broad nose resting crookedly on her face, thick lips and a wide mouth that looked too big even on her broad jaw. Oberyn was amazed at the freckles she had all over—from her forehead down to her pale shoulders and chest, her arms. The yellow towel wrapped around her washed her out and was a bit too small as it showed a lot of her long, thick thighs and legs that went on for miles. At these, Oberyn felt something in him short-circuit and he staggered back. He actually staggered.

The noise and chatter had resumed but there was also laughter now, and it was mocking and cruel. Oberyn narrowed his eyes at the girls and boys looking pointedly at the too-tall blond and laughing at her. And she knew, that was the most painful thing, she knew.  
Two, giant pink spots coloured her cheeks and she bowed her head as she shut the door. She turned too quickly and Oberyn saw a bigger problem in the making before she did. As she turned to leave, her towel got caught between the door and the frame. To his horror, her towel began to slide off.

He heard a cry—it must be her—and as he ran toward her, the towel fell completely off her body, revealing a flat chest that was more muscle than breasts but big, pink nipples, a straight, boyish waist and of course, the thick, blond bush between her thighs that told him she was, indeed, female. Her face reddened as her arms flew up to cover her small tits.

As loud laughter punched the air when the crowd realized what was happening, Oberyn ran to her, slammed her against the door of 48E with his body, shielding her from the cruel crowd. He looked in her wide, watery blue eyes, her wobbling chin and fell in love.

 

Brienne Tarth had never been out with a boy.

She had never been with a boy, period.

Hours after Oberyn Martell had saved her from the humiliation of exposing herself to an entire hall of jeering, mocking people, she was still distracted and shaking. She went through her classes on autopilot, staring dully at the professor or the board, making doodles on her notebook rather than notes. It was a day that went on too long and when the bell rang indicating the end of her last class, she was ready to crawl into bed, cry, and hope that it was graduation day tomorrow when she woke up.

Margaery was in the room when she arrived. With her long hair in a loose braid and wearing a white sweater, jeans and pink Converse sneakers, she looked beautiful, the girl every girl wanted to be—and possibly some boys, if they were inclined that way. She looked up from her laptop and smiled at Brienne. It was gentle and kind, sincere. She had comforted her tall roommate in the bathroom earlier and knew what had happened.

“Have I got something good for you, Bree,” Margaery announced, bouncing off her bed and pulling something out of her back pocket. She held out an envelope. “For you. From Oberyn Martell.”

Brienne froze and stared at it as if it contained a bomb. “Why?”

“What do you mean why? Come on, it’s good!”

“You read it?” She didn’t know how to feel about that.

“No, dummy. You just missed him. He was looking for you, I asked why. I have to weed out the good ones from the idiots, you know. Come on, Brienne!” Margaery practically shoved the envelope to her nose. Sighing loudly, Brienne took it and pulled out a small, plain, white card. She read the message there, glanced at Margaery, then sank heavily on the bed.

Margaery looked at her, her eyes big. “What?”

Brienne looked at the card. “He’s asking me to the movies tonight.”

“Oh.” Margaery’s face fell. “And you can’t?”

“I have a paper—“

“Is that the paper for Marillion? You said that won’t be due for another two weeks.”

“It doesn’t hurt to start on it—“

“Just as it won’t hurt to go out with your rescuer. Oh, gods, Brienne, it’s like the perfect meet-cute.” Margaery flopped down her bed happily. Continuing in a dreamy voice, she said, “It’s like a knight rushing to rescue the helpless maiden, protecting her virtue and honour—gods,” she whispered. “It’s perfect. Just perfect. So romantic.”

Brienne blushed. Being naked in front of a boy she didn’t know, and that said boy getting naked seconds later as he wrapped his towel around her, hardly counted as romantic. Perfectly mortifying? Yes.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?” Margaery jackknifed as if she’d been electrocuted. “It’s the movies. It’s the safest date there is. You don’t have to talk for two hours and when you do, you have the movie to talk about. That will get you through dinner.”

“I’ve never been on a date,” Brienne blurted out, blushing hotly. It was so embarrassing.

Margaery stilled. “Never?”

She shook her head.

“You went to prom, right?”

She shook her head.

“That’s shocking.”

“No it’s not. Look at me. I’m a giant freak.”

Margaery stood and glowered at her, hands on her hips. “Stop that. You’re tall, not a giant. I’d kill for long legs like yours. And you’re not a freak.”

Brienne shrugged. Margaery didn’t know how cruel life had been to her.

“Even if I wanted to go, I don’t have anything to wear.”

Margaery grinned. “Challenge accepted.”

“What?”

“Get up. We’re raiding your closet. You have stuff you can wear on a date, Brienne. You just have to learn how to put them together and above all, confidence. Confidence is always sexy, even if it comes in turtleneck.”

 

Brienne was expecting everything to go wrong on their movie date from the moment Oberyn showed up at her door. He was shorter than her but carried himself with an easy confidence she would come to envy. Hard as it was to believe, the smile he gave was actually for her, and its warmth was reflected in his dark eyes. She smiled back shyly, her cheeks heating up.

She wouldn’t remember the movie they first saw. It was the moments during the movie and after that she did—how he didn’t crowd her or felt entitled to put an arm around her just because he’d asked her out. Oberyn gave her space but when she needed him close, he made sure he still gave her room to breathe. Come dinner, he didn’t take her to a too-fancy restaurant but a casual one, where the food was also good and the crowd mostly made up of college students like them. He asked about herself and she stammered the entire time, stunned that someone would take such an interest in her boring life. But his eyes remained warm, and the questions he asked reflected that he had listened at her every word. 

By the time they reached the dorm, Brienne had begun to relax a little. Oberyn placed a light hand on the small of her back as he had her precede him inside the elevator. She didn’t flinch, didn’t stiffen. 

Most girls would hope and hold their breath for a kiss on the lips after the first date, but not Brienne. The night had already taken a lot out of her and if Oberyn kissed her anywhere right now, she would embarrass herself all over again. Instead, they stood at her door, smiling at each other, ignoring the stares directed their way. 

“Can I see you again?” He asked her. “Not just in the dorm, or you brushing your teeth with me. Like, can we do what we did again say. . .tomorrow?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Except that it’s not movies tomorrow, but a concert. At the quad.” 

“Okay.”

His smile widened. “Will you say anything else besides `okay’?”

She blushed. “Yes.”

“Good night, Brienne.”

She nodded again and let herself in. 

At first, the rumour was Oberyn Martell felt sorry for the ugly Tarth bitch ending up naked with her meager goods on display. But as they went out for the third time, the sixth, the fifteenth, until it was the second semester, this vile rumour began to die and Oberyn and Brienne making out in the common room of Tyrell Hall or elsewhere on campus was no longer given the attention they once got when they started going out. 

Brienne was madly in love. She couldn’t get Oberyn out of her mind and had to struggle to concentrate on schoolwork. It wouldn’t do having to explain to her dad that she flunked out because she spent her time flat on her back playing tonsil tennis with Oberyn. Or smooshed against the books in the section of the library that was dusty and hardly saw any foot traffic, making out still. 

Margaery made sure she always had condoms in her purse now though Brienne never once dared to present them to her boyfriend. It was clear that Oberyn was experienced—you didn’t get to kiss like that without having had a lot of practice—and to her relief, he didn’t push her or rush her in any way. They were together for two months before she allowed him to fondle her breasts through her shirt, and another to slide his hand under it and touch her for real. She had gasped and cried out the first time he kissed her breasts, sucked her nipples. She felt herself lit from the inside as he fucked her with his fingers for the first time. It had been the strangest thing, feeling his fingers there, and she wondered what his penis would be like, how deep it would go. She came hard thinking about it as his fingers pumped and twirled in her.

The first time she showed any boldness was when she asked Oberyn to teach her how to touch him. Like, _really touch him._ Make him feel good all over.

They were in her bed when she asked him this. Brienne lay on her back, her shirt open and naked from the waist down. She was flushed and shaking from the pleasure of Oberyn’s mouth and tongue on her tits and around, his hand petting the warm, moist curls of her cunt. He grinned at her breathless question and sucked her right nipple before releasing it with a pop. He was naked from the chest up and wearing his jeans.

“You want to give me a hand job?” He asked, his hand cupping her moist cunt possessively.

“Don’t make fun. I—I watched some videos. . .” She blushed prettily and his grin stretched even more.

“Ooh. You watched porn?”

“It doesn’t seem realistic. It looked. . .rough.”

“Personally, I do like it a little rough and a light tug, but you don’t ever spank it, that’s for sure.” He continued nuzzling her breasts while a finger circled her clit. She tensed, her thighs clamping around his hand. Then he reared up and coaxed her mouth to open for their tongues to kiss. He continued between petting her curls and circling her clit.

“I also,” Brienne closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then looked at him, “I also would like for you to teach me how to. . .how to. . .er. . .blow you.”

Oberyn burst out laughing. Brienne, hurt, turned away from him and shut her blouse closed. Realizing that his good intention had been interpreted very wrongly, he stopped her, gently pinning her arms beside her ears. The smooth skin of his chest, his nipples, brushed against her own and she let out a groan. He buried his face in her neck, loving the gentle scent of soap there.

“I’ll teach you,” he told her, already massively aroused at the idea of instructing her to pleasure him. “But let’s start with hand jobs first. Might be easier.” Fuck, he sounded breathless. “Uh, would you like to start now?”

If Oberyn thought that teaching Brienne to stroke his cock, and a little later, take him in her mouth, would give him relief from mere making out and fondling her, he was very much mistaken. He wanted to fuck her more than ever, sink in her tight, virgin cunt and make her come over and over. Brienne was so responsive, so fucking responsive that it turned his head, amazed him how no man ever thought to look past her appearance and see that her beauty was in her sensuality. And fuck, her lips were so fun to kiss. He could kiss her for hours, suck them. He loved how swollen and big they looked after making out. And when she learned how to go down on him, her big lips looked more swollen and fucking kissable.

So he couldn’t stop kissing her when they entered their room at Winter Rose Bed & Breakfast. Brienne’s heart beat loud and fast in her chest as she kissed him back, both terrified and exhilarated that they were going to fuck for the first time, that she was going to fuck for the first time. They fell on the bed with their lips latched together and arms clinging tight around each other. They wrestled the clothes off each other until at last they were naked, together, for the first time.

Now, with their breath and heartbeat slowing down, they could look at each other and touch, reverently, for this was the first time they were seeing new planes of skin. Brienne was blushing as she touched his abs, and got more hesitant as she wrapped her hand around his cock. It was long and slim, elegant, if it could be called that. As he'd taught her, she thumbed the fat bead at the tip and spread it around, rubbing him. Oberyn groaned against her mouth before pleading that she stop or he’ll be coming all over her. And it was thrilling that she could have such an effect on him, on a man. The fireplace, the view of mountains and mirror-clear lake outside the window, this wonderful bed, the man between her legs—she had never imagined any of these. Never. 

Oberyn ran his hand down her left hip, her thigh. It was bunched and corded with tension. He kissed her on the lips. “Relax, baby.”

Brienne looked at him, wonder in her eyes. “You’ve never called me that before.”

He stroked her sides, marveling at her soft skin. “Really? I’ve always thought you as one.” He grinned and his lips hovered over hers as he whispered, “My baby.”

It felt good to be. . .owned. Like this. To be wanted, most of all. She reached with a shaky hand for the dark curls on his head. “I’m yours?”

“If you want.” They kissed again, sweetly. Oberyn stamped down the anguished groan threatening to burst from his throat as his cock pressed against her thigh. He was so ready, so, so ready. Mercifully, Brienne ended the kiss and looked at him with bright eyes.

“Are you mine?” She asked him, her tone plaintive, small for someone her size and build. 

“Only if you want me,” he told her honestly. 

She kissed him again. Oberyn gripped her face and kissed her back, hungrily, bruisingly. Then he broke away, panting, “Baby, I want you. Now.”

Understanding what he meant, she nodded, her eyes big and worried. He caressed her cheek. “It will hurt for a little but I’ll try not to hurt you so much. Just relax, okay?”

Brienne moving would have her jostling and touching him and Oberyn was near his breaking point. Gritting his teeth, he got the foil packet, ripped it open with his teeth. She watched, biting her lip, her legs shaking despite lying down, at his cock pointing straight up toward his stomach. Oberyn’s hands were shaking as he unrolled the condom down his length then looked at her. She cupped his face in her hands.

If she can be brave fucking for the first time, she can be brave admitting what was in her heart too, for the first time.

“I love you.” She told him, giving him at last the response he had been hoping for many months. 

Oberyn looked surprised then relieved. “Brienne, I love you too.”

He kissed her again then gave a questioning look. She nodded and closed her eyes.

Gods, she was tighter than he thought, Oberyn discovered as he pumped the first inches of his cock in her. She was wet, she seemed to be burning him through the latex, but fuck above, she was fucking tight. He moved his hips, gingerly pumping into her once, twice, then three times before he felt that tear and Brienne hissed, her nails digging in the skin of his back painfully. It really hurt, a sharp, spiking sting. Then she remembered from the movies she saw, both porn and art films, movies she watched to prepare for this moment. He wasn't fucking her yet. _Will it hurt some more?_

He groaned against her throat, forcing himself to stop as sweat dripped from his back, his shoulders, onto her. He had never been with a virgin before. If fucking a virgin, hells, a maiden, would require so much care, he’d be happy just kissing and having her stroke him. But this was Brienne, he thought, urging her gently to open her eyes. Her face was contorted in a tight grimace of pain and her chin was trembling, much like the first time he saw her naked in the hallway. When he fell in love.

“I love you,” he whispered when her eyes opened and looked at him. He kissed her, sorry for hurting her, honoured that she loved him, that she had given him her virginity. “I love you.”

Then he pulled out and pushed harder into her, unable to stop his grunt of satisfaction at the surprised delight on her face.

 

Brienne feared that after fucking Oberyn, he would withdraw and avoid her then break up with her. Too many girls on her floor had it happen and she dreaded their return to school. 

It turned out she needn’t worry because the exact opposite happened. Oberyn was more attentive, sweeter—yet Brienne still wouldn’t trust him completely, thinking that he was being nicer because a break-up loomed close and was waiting to strike when least expected. So she couldn’t enjoy the deeper intimacy their relationship acquired. 

And in her book, she was convinced they were going to break up. Oberyn had only a few weeks to go before graduation. She didn’t expect him to stick around and be with his college girlfriend. The thing to do was to end it before he did—she was used to pain longer than love—but she couldn’t. Every kiss she treated as the last before they were kissing again, every fuck the last before he reached for her again. It soon became noticeable—the despondency in her face, the big, black shadows under her eyes. It was lucky she did well in classes but she knew her latest efforts were half-assed. It didn’t take long for Margaery to notice it while they were having breakfast, asking her point-blank what was wrong. She flushed and said she was just tired.

“Oh, please,” Margaery couldn’t resist teasing her. “I should be tired because I haven’t slept in my bed for days. So, can Tormund and I have our turn in our room later?”

Brienne’s smile was wan. “Be my guest.”

“You can sleep over at Oberyn’s, right?”

“Of course.”

She took her books and laptop to Oberyn and Petyr’s room later that day. As soon as her backpack hit the floor, Oberyn kicked the door shut and took her in his arms. She held him too, kissed him back, thinking again that this was the last, that she was hurting herself by having this drag on longer. But she kept kissing him, both of them taking turns pulling and being pulled to the bed, their hands going for buttons and zippers without looking at them, keeping their lips fused to each other. 

It was a fast, emotionless fuck, as satisfying as loosening a cramped muscle. She drew the blankets to her breasts as he rolled off her, both of them panting. She lay down turned away from him so his breath hit her nape, followed by his lips. She stared at the wall, the posters and the shirts hanging on hooks, the books in the small shelf combining into a mess and mass of colours and indiscernible shape. Her spine was stiff as Oberyn put an arm around her stomach and pressed against her.

“Baby, you are so far away,” he remarked, “I wonder if you’re with me at all.”

“I’m just thinking,” she answered. “Stuff. Nothing but stuff.”

“Tell me,” he urged, kissing her shoulder and holding her close.

“I should study,” she said, but made no move to squirm away.

“We should study.” Oberyn agreed but his hold on her didn’t slacken either. “Brienne, can I ask you one question, just one question, a teeny one. I’m sure you can still cram it in that big head of yours.” His tone was playful and he squeezed her breasts.

She sighed. “I suppose.”

“You know, there’s a mirror in front of us. I can see you look bored.” Oberyn teased her. 

“Sorry. What’s your question?” She didn’t turn to face him.

He gave her a look, questioning and curious, but he didn’t say anything. He just moved closer until she felt his hairy legs brushing the back of her calves. This is it, she thought. He’s going to ask me to get dressed and leave because he wants a break. Or he wants to end things. That’s why—

“Brienne, will you marry me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oberyn and Brienne's meeting was inspired by that scene in How to be Single, starring Dakota Fanning and Rebel Wilson.  
> ____  
> When the series begins, Brienne is thirty-two years old. In the flashbacks, she says they've been married for close to seven years, making her thirty years old. This chapter ends with Oberyn asking her to marry him and the story also mentions they got married soon after she graduated from college, putting her at around twenty-three years old when they did.


	3. Easier Than Breathing

There were only two instances in Brienne’s life when she’d been brazen. The first was when she asked Oberyn to teach her to pleasure him during the first months of their relationship and the second when she said she loved him. 

As of today, she had three: telling Selwyn that Jaime was coming over and he was staying for a few days.

She didn’t say it as abruptly as it sounded in her head. Brienne got up early to prepare breakfast, partly to convince Selwyn, mostly because she wanted to be normal again and that meant pulling her weight around. She cooked his favorite: eggs Benedict. She baked the muffins herself, finding comfort in still being able to something she hadn’t done in years. And it was fun and satisfying that she still knew how to make poached eggs. Done, she carefully put the wobbly eggs over the split halves of the muffins, drizzled hollandaise sauce then arranged a combination of strawberries, blueberries and cubed cantaloupe around it. Coffee was brewed and ready to pour when Selwyn, lured by the aromatic smells, arrived in the kitchen.

If he was surprised, he didn’t show it, but it was clear he appreciated her efforts. When was the last time she had done something for anyone, simply because she wanted to? Hard to remember. Oberyn was hardly around so it wasn’t really pleasurable cooking for herself, and most of the time, she ended up eating takeaway. When she would invite Margaery over, her best friend insisted on doing the cooking or ordering in. 

Seeing the soft smile on Selwyn’s face at his favourite breakfast laid out before him made her glad, and for the first time since her miscarriage, felt hungry. He kissed her on the cheek and they sat down to enjoy the meal. 

“Your mom used to make this for me every weekend,” Selwyn told Brienne as he happily dug in. “She didn’t like it when I would sleep in so this was how she got me out of bed.”

Brienne remembered. And it was during one of those weekends when her mother taught her to make poached eggs.

Father and daughter ate in comfortable silence, with only the fewest words passed between them every now and then. It was halfway through the meal when Brienne thought to bring up Jaime.

“Dad?” She asked, putting her mug away. “I need a favour.”

“Sure, dear. What is it?”

It was when she had to tell him exactly what she needed that she realized how strange her request was. She had known Jaime only for months. Months. He was her father’s book dealer, a sort of friend but more of somebody he conducted business with. She looked at Selwyn’s expectant face and decided to just plunge right in.

“Jaime’s coming over,” she said. “Jaime Lannister. I asked him.”

Selwyn cleared his throat. “You asked him?”

“He’s become a good friend, Daddy.”

“And what of Margaery? Or Oberyn?” 

“Margaery’s. . .to much. I love her. But she’s like you. You treat me like I’m going to break. Jaime doesn’t. I need somebody like that to help me right now. Please, can he stay here?” She asked, pointedly ignoring his inquiry about her husband.

Selwyn scratched his head. “Brienne, sweetheart—“

“He’s a good friend.”

“We don’t know him very well," he reminded her.

“He gave me shelter and tea and let me stay in his apartment the first time we met,” Brienne told him. “Dad, I vomited in his shop one time and he was there, most important of all he was there when. . .when. . .when I lost my baby.” Resolutely, she continued, “If those are not enough to tell you what kind of a man he is, I don’t have anything else. He treats me like I’m still normal. I need that,” she repeated.  
“Brienne, Marge and I mother you because we don’t want you hurt.”

“That’s just it. I’ve already been hurt in the worst possible way. You can’t keep talking to me as if you’ll spook me or tiptoe around me as if I’m going to cry any second.” She had cried buckets in the hospital, that was it. Really, hat was it.

“Why didn’t you ask Oberyn to come here?” Selwyn asked her carefully. “Don’t you realize how odd it looks, a man you’ve only known for months, here in our house, and your husband is in the city?”

Brienne looked at her remaining food, her mouth dry. “I don’t want to see him. Not yet.”

“Why not? He’s been calling.” Selwyn sighed. “Despite my telling him not to.”

“I don’t know how to forgive him.” Brienne stared at him, begging him to understand. “Dad, I don’t care that he was negotiating a merger that saved thousands of people from getting laid off. I needed him when our baby was dying inside me. I’m not saying the baby could have been saved if he were with me. But I needed him. And he wasn’t there. He pointedly ignored all of your calls and Margaery’s until he turned his phone off, didn’t even read your messages until much later. I can’t look at a man who doesn’t realize that I’m his wife, that no matter what it’s my welfare that he cares more about than others.” A sob broke out of her, surprising them both. “I hate him so much, Daddy. I hate him and I want him hurt like I am.”

Jaime Lannister stood out like a golden beacon of light in the arrivals area of the airport. Brienne raised her arm, waving at him and he acknowledged it with a quick nod. She stood in her spot, feeling thrilled and as if floating off the ground the closer he approached until he was standing in front of her.

When she first saw him, with thunder at her back and rain clouding and dripping from her eyes, the impact of his classic, chiseled good looks nearly felled her. Nobody could be this handsome. Getting to know him in the last few months, instead of chipping away his handsome veneer, had only made him even more better-looking. It was terribly unfair that somebody who looked like half a god could often be the most annoying person in the room.

For all his sharp tongue and insistence on calling her wench, however, she had seen kindness in him. It was clear he was good, fair boss, judging from how his employees were quick to do as he asked and even when he didn’t. She had seen him struggle for patience when confronted with the dilettantes that would come to the shop with annoying regularity. And the kindest thing he had ever done was when he’d stayed at her side after the doctors performed the surgery, letting her cry and ruin his shirt. He didn’t tell her to hush up, to stop, he didn’t tell her things will be alright. He just held her until every tear was squeezed out and she fell asleep in his arms.

It was as he stood before her that Brienne realized that only during high emotion events did they touch—when she first clomped into his store dripping and when she miscarried. They had always touched to comfort. It was the easiest thing to hug since he’d already seen her at her most broken but she was suddenly frozen and inexplicably, terrified.

Jaime, seeing doubt cross her face, smirked. “Wench, you’re going to have to touch me to know I’m real.”

She reddened and looked away then back at him. He was frowning slightly, trying to discern what was going on with her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. Awkwardly, she went to him, giving him a brief hug, an even briefer kiss. She moved away but Jaime held her.  
“Don’t be a fucking tree trunk and hug me back, won’t you?” He demanded, his arms tightening around her waist. To her ear, he whispered, “Especially when you don’t feel like one. Come on, wench.”

“My name,” she hissed, jerking her arms around him and blushing even more, “is Brienne.”

“So you say. You feel like you’ve lost weight.” His lips remained at her ear, his warm breath ruffling the hairs behind the shell and making her shiver. “I like women with some meat.”

“This is the only woman you have, I’m sorry,” she snapped, lurching away as if burned. Jaime dropped his arms, the smirk back on his too-handsome face. 

Realizing she had been rude, she stammered, “Jaime, I’m sorry. It’s just that. . .you’ve done so much just by being here and I know you have things to do back home, a lot of things and I ask you to come and this is how I welcome you—“

“Fuck it, wench. Unless you want to make it up to me with a kiss or two.” His emerald eyes sparkled and his leer brought no other interpretation. Brienne felt her neck flush.

“Of course not. I’m married.”

Her reminder was ice water to the electrically-charged moment. They both winced. She tried to apologize but Jaime gave her a cool expression.

“Of course you are,” he retorted, his tone mocking. “I was joking. You’re an idiot if you think I’m serious.” 

 

After their chilly meeting at the airport, things appeared to be normal again between them. While Jaime unpacked and freshened up in the guest room, Brienne put the lasagna to bake in the oven and set the table. Tywin arrived about ten minutes after, foregoing his usual plans to hang out with his friends to join his daughter in welcoming Jaime.

For all of Selwyn’s doubts and misgivings about inviting a person to his home that he knew little about, the two men talked and laughed as if they have been friends for years. Brienne could easily slip in and out of their conversation, preferring the latter so she could observe and bask in the enjoyment listening to them rib at each other and laugh. Their meal was lasagna, thick with cheese and beef, paired with a rich, robust red. Dessert was cream puffs, but bought from the daughter, Brienne hastened to explain when Jaime shot her an impressed look.

She shooed them out of the kitchen to clean up, glaring at an insistent Jaime, who glared right back at her. Selwyn told Brienne to let their guest do as he wanted, and that included letting him be enslaved. “Meanwhile, I am going to bed and read. Brienne, that was a wonderful dinner. Thank you.”

Alone with Jaime in the kitchen, the act of clearing the table and washing the dishes was suddenly, and strangely, intimate. She soaped, he rinsed, together, they dried. In between, they talked quietly and sipped wine.

“So,” Jaime said as he put the plates in the rack. Brienne pouring wine into their goblets. “You have me here, wench. What happens next?”

“It’s a little late but I can take you to the beach tomorrow?” She asked as he joined her at the counter. “Then there’s this great restaurant there with the juiciest shrimps and the cheapest but best beer in the world, I promise you.”

“What else?” Jaime asked, reaching for his goblet. When Brienne looked puzzled, he explained, “Wench, I’m here because you need me. I don’t need you to bring me to beaches and fatten me up with shrimp. How are you doing?”

She crossed her arms. “What do you think?”

“It’s a valid question, Brienne. A friend wants to know.”

She started at his use of her name. Realizing he’d slipped, he snorted. “Don’t read too much into it. I’m sleepy and I’m having way too much wine than usual.”

“Jaime?” She asked, watching his throat bob as he sipped wine.

“Hmm?”

“You have the right to ask. But I also have the right to ask you not to ask me that. Please?”

He sighed loudly, clearly disapproving. “If that’s what you want.”

“It’s what I need. Now.”

They finished their wine and agreed to have breakfast early so they could go to the beach right away. Jaime had never surfed before and Brienne was eager to teach him. She walked him to his door, bade him goodbye then slipped to her room next to his. Selwyn was at the other end of the hallway.

In her room was privacy, something she had begun to value greatly since arriving with her father. It had its own bathroom, sparing her the inconvenience of having to rush because someone else needed to use it.

Baths were a luxury that she didn’t indulge in much even when Oberyn was around. They had an impressive Jacuzzi in their home. She had entertained romantic thoughts when the bathroom was being constructed to her specifications, and once in a while he would indulge her. But Oberyn preferred showers, finding the ritual of filling up the tub wasteful and marinating in one’s sweat and dirt with soap and bubbles quite disgusting. She supposed he was right but having grown up around water, she found comfort in being surrounded in it.  
After the tub was filled and the salts had dissolved, she undressed in front of the mirror. Every night, she looked at her naked body. 

The cruelest of things, she had thought as she put on the operating table with her baby bleeding out of her, was to feel your child dying inside you and unable to do anything to stop it. 

But nobody mentions how your body still bears reminder of that carnage, she thought, noting that her eyes looked too big and her face was sickly pale. Her gaze fell on her breasts. They were small but still bore the little fullness that came with the milk filling them. She felt sharp pangs of pain there, razor-sharp, shooting from her nipples and spreading to her breasts. They hit her really hard when she was lying in bed at night, tired but unable to sleep. 

Her hand was light, hesitant, as it touched the slight mound that remained on her stomach. It had always been flat but began to round. In its place now was skin she could pinch, a small but significant roll. Head lowered, she went to the tub. As she sat down, her arm reached for her I-Pod docked on its waterproof, portable speakers, found what she wanted to listen then leaned back.

Her heart was trapped in a tight fist as the first, gentle strokes of the piano played, followed by the sad glide of the bow across a cello. She closed her eyes, her face scrunching up. Tears began to pool in her eyes before sliding down, slowly, painfully, much like the blood dripping down her legs and carrying bits of her baby. 

Her baby, she thought as the music’s soft, powerful notes pummeled her in the heart, her stomach. Oh, her poor baby. Her little, beautiful swan.

She shouldn’t have asked. She should have just let the doctors do their job, put the body away. Why did she have to look, why did she ask? It didn’t make her any less dead. _Her daughter._ Her beautiful daughter, too pure for this world then dying in the most horrible way. 

She was still leaning on the edge of the tub, her tears plopping down the soapy water, willing herself to be lost in the music and adrift in the pretend-amniotic pool of the water when she heard a door opening. Quickly, she straightened up, pressing a towel to her eyes as she listened to feet walking on the carpet in her bedroom then towards her. When she opened her eyes, she saw Jaime standing at the door.  
Oh, the gods were cruel. Why, why bring someone so beautiful, so perfect, at this moment, every inch of him a taunt to her tragedy. His hair was mussed, his body, lean yet muscled like a medieval knight, revealed except for the towel loosely wrapped around his waist, held awkwardly with his right hand behind it. She wanted to die at how he was looking at her: with pity. 

“What are you doing here?” She asked, unable to hide the pain in her voice.

“I don’t have soap. I thought to ask. . .” Jaime, to her horror, stepped inside, walking and walking until he was right next to her. His emerald eyes were sharp. “I asked you earlier how you were doing. You asked me not to ask you. Brienne—“

Helpless, she blurted out, “I can still feel her, Jaime.”

He froze. “Her?”

Tears fell. Her chin trembled from the effort of holding back a wail. 

He knelt and cupped her cheek as if it were delicate crystal. “You had a daughter.”

“I was going to have a daughter,” she whimpered, shaking all over. 

“You’re cold,” Jaime said, dropping his hand from her. “Let’s get you out of the water.”

She shook her head. “N-No. I pretend. . .I wonder how she felt in me. . .I wonder if I didn’t protect her enough, to lose her.”

It was like she was unleashing one firebomb after the next. It would destroy a city. Jaime only had to look at her to know that she was wrecked from the inside. It was only a matter of time before the cracks were revealed. Holy shit, he thought, glaring at the towel he was wearing. How could he help her dressed as he was without embarrassing them both?

Fuck it, he thought, staring at her crying face determinedly.

“You’re going to make yourself sick, wench,” he said “Not on my watch.”

Brienne wailed as he shoved an arm between her back and the tub, and another under water to tuck under her knees. Her body was slippery and cold, she was fucking cold to the touch. Despite her cries, she held on to him, her arms loosening once he’d set her on her feet. She swayed and he grabbed her, holding her so tightly against his body that it stopped the descent of the towel between them.

“Jaime,” she whispered, her sapphire eyes wet and red with tears. His name was a cry for help yet also beseeching that he leave her. 

How many times does she have to break? He raged silently, yanking the towel from between them and draping it around her broad, trembling shoulders. He held her around the waist, pressing the warmth of his body against her cold flesh. Her forehead rested against his, her gasps and his own rushed breathing mingling. 

“You don’t have to do this alone, Brienne,” he told her.

It might be that he had spoken a vow. To his ears, he did.

So he sealed it in a way that she would always remember, would never be broken.

With a kiss. 

She drew back, startled, but he followed, keeping his lips moulded against hers. There should be surprise from him too but either he was too affected by her tears, too determined to fulfill his vow. As her hands hesitantly touched his face and her lips slid softly, tentatively against his, he realized that this was the easiest thing he had ever done in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for how contrived Jaime came to the bathroom.


	4. Hurt

Jaime was warm.

His lips were gentle, almost-brushes against her own, as if he re-learning the shape and feel of her before giving her one true kiss after the next. His muscles rippled under the skin she touched, held. As the shivers in her body eased and the chill on her skin melted with every warm press of a random surface of his skin on her, she felt the hard pulse of his cock first brushing against the curls below her navel, then harder and surer until it was pushing against her stomach. Their kiss deepened then a mouth engulfing the other, the other taking her turn, tongues sinking in the warm recess. Her hands smoothed down his chest, feeling his heart beating fast under the thick mat of golden hair. Jaime cupped her face, slid a hand down her back, caressed her bottom. Each touch had her inhaling sharply and kissing him harder but not once did he stagger or showed any signs of yielding. Instead he moved against her, their bodies in a mutual battle to get closer.

Brienne was wrapped in the warmth radiating from Jaime when one hand moved from her bottom to caress the outside of her thigh before sliding between their bodies to seek her cunt. She gasped against his tongue when he cupped her, petting her gently as if to soothe her before a hard finger pressed on the stiff, aching nub. She was warm and aching between the legs, her legs were struggling to keep her upright as he played with her clit. She clung, kissing him because it was the only way she could breathe, believe this was real, when a finger entered her soaked folds.

She froze.

As Jaime’s tongue fucked her mouth and his finger fucked her cunt, the truth of what they were doing, what had happened, who she was lashed at her. Her eyes widened and she tore her mouth away from him, stunned with what she had allowed to happen. “Stop,” she whispered, hands pushing at his shoulders, her legs closing but trapping his hand between them instead, pushing his finger deeper. “Jaime, no. Stop. Stop, this is wrong.”

He stilled as if someone whose strings had been yanked sharply. His breath was a sharp, hot gust against her face as her words reached him. Their eyes met then yanked themselves away from each other, Brienne bumping her hip against the edge of the tub and ending up sitting on it, Jaime hitting the door with the back of his shoulder pushing it closed. Their stares mirrored each other’s shock, their lips red and swollen from their heady, stolen kisses. Unbidden, her eyes fell on his cock, hard and pointing straight up at his stomach, the tip glistening. The sight of it reminded her of the wanting heat between her legs. She tightened the towel around her and looked away, embarrassed.

“Brienne.” His voice was rough, gravelly. She wouldn’t look at him, shocked and mortified with what she had allowed.

Still looking away, she reached with shaking hands for the I-Pod to turn it off. It plunged the bathroom into a screaming silence. 

“Do you have a towel here, a robe, something?” Jaime asked after another tense moment. “I can’t wander around like this.”

She looked at him then then pointed silently at the set of hooks at the foot of the tub, where her bathrobe hung. Jaime, still aroused and his face in an unreadable mask went to get it. He gave her his back as he put on the bright blue bathrobe, turning to face her when he was covered. She kept her eyes on the water as she felt him stare at her before turning on his heel. The door opened and closed with a soft click, then another, and a third. Alone now, she stood up and went to her room.

Her skin was strangely sensitive, making her hiss and jump as she struggled into an old t-shirt and a pair of pajamas. She combed her hair, noting that her face didn’t look as pale as before and there was a strange shine in her eyes. She looked around, her eyes lingering on the wall shared with Jaime’s room and came to a decision. She walked fast to leave behind the voice telling her to stay.

At his door, she took a deep breath and knocked. “Jaime.”

It opened quickly. Jaime had dressed in a t-shirt and pajamas too. He looked annoyed. “I did not come here to fuck you.”

“I don’t want you to fuck me,” she shot back, angry at his assumption yet surprisingly hurt. “I need a friend.”

“A kissing friend?” 

“You kissed me first.”

“You kissed me back.”

“Jaime,” she whispered, unaware that her eyes and the way she said his name were doing strange things to his knees. “Please. I’m sorry.”

He looked stunned and blurted out, “What are you apologizing for? I kissed you.” Yet he couldn’t say what she just said. He just couldn’t.  
So, as ill-advised as it was, he hugged her. It knocked a gasp out of her but her arms went around him and she rested her chin on his shoulder.

“Please be my friend.” She begged him.

He tightened his hold. “That’s why I’m here.”

She pulled away. “Can I come in?”

“Wench, I don’t think—“

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself. I haven’t been in the mood to fuck for weeks now. You’re safe, Lannister,” she growled, storming past him. She sat down on the foot of the bed. He closed the door and leaned against it, arms crossed and staring at her suspiciously.

"What do you want to talk about? I assume that’s what you’re here for if not to convince me to fuck you.”

Brienne lit up like a red lantern as she stammered, “For the love of the Seven, for someone who just said he has no interest in fucking me you can’t seem to drop the subject. But yes, I’m here. . .to talk.”

He looked testy then. “If you’re worried about things being awkward between us now, it’s not.”

“Good.”

“Is that all?”

“Are you angry? Why are you all the way there?”

He seemed to fight an argument within himself before he left the door and sat down beside her. Their shoulders brushed, his firm thigh pressed against her own but neither flinched nor move away. They turned to look into each other’s eyes.

“Brienne, I have to ask this but why did you ask me here, not your husband?”

Her face twisted in pain and she ran her fingers through her hair in angry, jerking motions. “I don’t know. I just. . .I can’t be with him right now.”

“You have the right to be angry.”

“Why do people keep saying that? I have the right to be angry. I have the right to be sad. That doesn’t change anything. And that’s one fucking right I don’t wish to have. Or two.”

“People just want the best for you.”

“They don’t have the right to assume what’s best for me. I’m so fucking tired of hearing it. You know what I’m waiting for? Some card. Like, `Oh, You Lost Your Baby, I’m Sorry’ just to put this all behind me. It’s all that people say to me and my baby—Jaime, I can still feel her dying.” 

There. The truth she had not told anyone until now. As Jaime took her hand, she rushed on. “I will never forget the pain, how I stupidly kept my legs shut all the way to the hospital as if that would keep her inside me. I—I yelled at the nurse who was telling me in that fucking, sickeningly gentle voice that she needed my panties off. I yelled and screamed but in the end I did as she asked and. . .” she crushed his hand as the pain welled up in her chest. “She was there. She was all blood and threads sticking to me as my panties were removed and I felt it when she was snapped away. It felt like she was holding me and begging me to do something--”

To her relief, Jaime’s arms went around her again and she slumped on his chest, breathing hard and fast as if she’d been running. His hands caressed her back as she bit on his cloth-covered shoulder to stifle the scream tearing at her throat. She felt Jaime stiffen and grunt as her teeth sank on his flesh but he didn’t push her nor tell her to stop. Instead, his hold on her firmed, a tacit permission to do what she needed to him. 

Angry, and angry at being helpless, at how she couldn’t wade out of this fucking misery, she bit him on the shoulder and beat him on the chest, delivering hard, bruising blows. Jaime flinched, he gasped, and she tried pulling away, unable to stomach more of the horror she was doing to him but his arms pinned her tight to his body. She began to struggle from him, determined to put an end to this need to hurt somebody, to let somebody know what had happened to her. She glared at him and he glared right back. She hit him one more time before she fell against him, knocking them both to the bed. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, hating herself for what she’d done to him. “I’m sorry.”

His fingers buried in her hair. “I’m your friend, Brienne.”

“Friends don’t do this.”

“This one does.” 

She shook her head and pushed up on her elbows to look down at him. He was still lying on his back. “No, Jaime. You shouldn’t let people hurt you like I have, or in any way.” Hesitantly, she laid a hand on his shoulder, discovering the tear in the fabric. She touched his chest, his stomach, hating herself as he gasped and stiffened. His fingertips caressing her jaw brought her attention back to his face.

“I’ve been hurt more than you can imagine, wench,” he told her. “This,” he brought her hand heavily on his ribs, breathing harshly, “is nothing.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you.”

His thumb ran across the upper curve of her lip. “You’re the first to apologize, wench.” There was a soft mocking tilt.

“Jaime,” she said, shocked. Quickly, she took his hand and pressed her lips on his palm. _Why would people hurt you? Why would you let them?_ But she wasn’t ready to know. Instead she held his hand to her cheek, cradling it. “Don’t do that again,” she told him instead.

“I like being hurt because it’s the only way I can still feel things.” 

“No. No, don’t. That can’t be the way.”

She wanted to kiss him all over but who was she to assume he’d feel better? Why would she do that? She was married. She had just lost her baby. She needed a friend. A good friend would never do what she was thinking.

“I’m broken too. But you won’t be as broken as I am. I’ll stop it, wench.”

“That’s not your responsibility.”

“What, you think you’re doing a great job?”

“I can be your friend, Jaime. If you want.”

He looked confused. “You are my friend.”

“Am I?” She asked. “You’ve not told me anything until a few seconds ago. I never thought. . .you can’t like being hurt. Nor can it be that you’ve been hurt more than not. I can’t. . .I can’t let you think that away, Jaime.”

His smile was sad. “So what will you do? Protect me? Slay all the monsters coming after me?”

“You’d do the same for me.”

“You’re wrong about me, wench. I’m not a good guy.”

“It doesn’t mean you deserve to be hurt.”

“Our choices lead us to the life we have, wench. I chose to love someone I shouldn’t. Maybe I still love her, I don’t know. Nothing goes unpunished. If good merits the cruel hand of the gods at times, what do you think they’ll do when you commit an abomination?”

His hand tightened around her nape. “What are you talking about?”

Jaime sat up, took her hand and pulled her with him towards the head of the bed. He lay down. Brienne, still looking unsure, elected to sit by his knees. But she didn’t let go of his hand.

As the sordid tale of a love he shouldn’t have unfolded, she gripped his hand, fearing that if she did he would disintegrate into pieces and drift away for good.


	5. Corruption of a Tender Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAY! TWO CHAPTERS TODAY!  
> ____  
> Please heed the Underage tag. That's what's coming up here in this chapter. Feel free to skip.

_Casterly Rock  
Twenty-two years ago_

The summer of Jaime’s fifteenth year, his mother Joanna suddenly died in her sleep. An aneurysm, according to the autopsy. There was no way of diagnosing or controlling them in any way. The summer, which should be as unremarkable as all past, was suddenly gray with her death.

His father, Tywin Lannister, closed up the penthouse, shipped off the servants to Casterly Rock before packing off Jaime and his little brother, fourteen-year-old Tyrion. The brothers could only look at each other helplessly, one minute with a mother to come home to, secure, surrounded by the familiar. The next motherless and forcibly ripped away from the halls that still bore the scent of her expensive perfume, rooms still echoing with her laugh. They declined the headphones offered to them as they climbed inside the helicopter. Only Tywin opted for them, sitting in front with the pilot and ignoring his sons until they approached the wide swaths of the Sunset sea, a deep turquoise tinged with the softest green, and ahead, the ancient fortifications of the old seat of House Lannister, still strong and as impressive even from the air. 

The family decided to adjourn to Casterly Rock after Joanna’s funeral, arriving either in hordes or trickles. First to arrive was Uncle Kevan with his wife Dorna, and their children Lancel, who was Tyrion’s age, and ten-year-old twins Martyn and Willem. Aunt Genna brought her husband, the dour-faced and boring Emmon Frey, and their children, twelve-year-old Janei and five-year-old Lyonel. Genna was heavily pregnant, carrying twin girls. 

Rounding up the clan currently at the Rock were fraternal twins Gerion and Cersei, the youngest of Tywin’s siblings. Blond, golden and with bright green eyes like the rest, their classic, chiseled looks emphasized even more how god-like they were in beauty. Uncle Gerion’s eyes, as usual, sparkled with mischief as he met Jaime and Tyrion on the helipad, spreading his arms and hugging them like a bear. He nodded at his brother Tywin, the exchange formal and cool. Tywin swept past him then his sister and didn’t look back. As Jaime hugged his uncle back, he looked past his shoulder at Cersei.

Aunt Genna was pretty but Aunt Cersei possessed a kind of beauty that would compel artists of old to render her on canvas and bards to sing only the most romantic songs. The sun bounced off her blond waves, making it shine like gold. But her emerald eyes were cold and on her full, pouty lips was a smirk that could be described as cruel if not for her beauty. Jaime had overheard from Tywin’s phone conversation with Uncle Kevan that her second husband, Rhaegar Targaryen, had filed for divorce and insisted on her accepting the terms stated in their prenup. Cersei refused and was determined to draw blood.

“You took your time, you fucking runts,” Uncle Gerion gently scolded Jaime and Tyrion as he set them away. “I was about to throw myself into the Sunset Sea when I was told you’d be arriving today.”

Jaime smiled, glad that his uncle was speaking to them as if they were still normal, while Tyrion, who was a dwarf, peered up at him and laughed. He was about to say something when Aunt Cersei shot her brother a look of pure irritation and hissed, “Such language is highly inappropriate for children.”

“Fuck propriety, Cersei,” Gerion said, waving his hand. “The meek and correct never get anything done but those who roar—hah!” He slapped Tyrion on the shoulder, who nodded, always in awe of the man. Cersei cast her cold eyes next to Jaime and he looked at his sneakers, flushing.

“Now that the children don’t have a mother, all the more they need the right influence,” she declared. The look she sent to Tyrion, Jaime saw, was scathing. Tyrion met her stare head-on, as Jaime had taught him. Born a dwarf, with features that made him more of monster rather than a golden Lannister, Tyrion had always been ridiculed. Home was the one place he didn’t have to deal with this, thank to Jaime and Joanna. Tywin couldn’t be bothered much, and it was agreed between the young Lannister brothers that Tyrion was only tolerated because of Joanna and the certainty of his bloodline. Aunt Cersei looked to share her eldest brother’s opinion, not hiding the look of disgust and horror on her face before she turned and walked away.

“Who put a gherkin up her ass?” Tyrion drawled, making Uncle Gerion laugh and Jaime shake his head.

“She’s our aunt, be nice,” he said.

“Ah, Jaime,” Gerion slapped him on the shoulder. “You haven’t been around her as long as I have so I’ll tell you this—you can be the nicest son of a bitch to my sister but that won’t change her opinion of you. And her opinion doesn’t even have the weight of a raindrop.”

“Still, she’s right.” Jaime insisted.

Gerion rolled his eyes. “Hey, if you want to defend her, be my guest. Tyrion and I are going sailing. It’s your choice, man.”

Jaime shrugged. “Of course I’m joining you.”

“Best decision you’ve ever made.”

 

The days were long and hot and the nights too short and offering little to almost no relief from the heat, despite the sea. Jaime spent most of the day in his room, sketching or just catching up on sleep. Before, he fell asleep listening to the waves outside the window but since arriving at the Rock, he spent the nights staring up at the ceiling. 

He would leave his room for meals and when he forced himself to take part in other activities. He trounced Lancel at tennis, played charades with Tyrion,Janei, Martyn, Willem, Uncle Kevan and Gerion. He went snorkeling with Tyrion, went horseback riding at the beach with his father. He watched cartoons with Lyonel.

One afternoon found him alone on the beach, sitting on the sand and just staring at the sea. Sunk in his thoughts and random imaginings, he didn’t notice until a shadow loomed over him. He jumped, taking a moment to realize the lithe legs in front of him, his eyes moving to take in the short skirt fluttering around slim thighs, the outline of a red bikini top under the dress and the beautiful face of Aunt Cersei.

“You scared me,” he said, relaxing.

“I called you,” she said, sitting down beside him, stretching her legs before her. “What are you thinking about that you couldn’t hear me?” There was an impatient edge on her voice.

“Why are you calling me?” He asked. “You’ve never talked to me before.”

“That’s because you were a child. You’re almost a man now. Maybe you’ve become interesting.”

Jaime stared at the sea, hurt. “I am a man. I’m almost sixteen.”

Aunt Cersei smirked. “Of course you are.”

“So what are you doing here?” She demanded after a beat of silence. “I thought people your age would be sneaking in beer or joints. I certainly expected my brother to instigate that with you.” There was no mistaking with which brother she meant.

“I don’t like beer,” Jaime replied, drawing random figures on the sand. “And I’ll never do drugs. Ever.”

“Oh, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” Cersei snorted. “You don’t like beer because there’s no good beer, period. It’s the poor man’s alcohol. You’re a Lannister.”

“Uncle Gerion likes beer.”

“Of course he would. He’s always shucked off his name and wealth like a disease.” Cersei sounded disgusted. “All our lives, our father—your grandfather—drilled in our heads the importance of family and legacy. Only Gerion told him to shove it. He doesn’t deserve the Lannister name and all that comes with it.”

“And you do?” Jaime snapped. “From what Father tells me, you lost your share when you married Roose Bolton. And now that Rhaegar’s divorcing you you’re going to end up like a fucking pauper—“

A slim hand cracked hard against his cheek. Stunned, Jaime’s hand flew to touch his stinging face as Cersei glared at him.

“How dare you,” she seethed.

“I’m sorry.” He was horrified. “Aunt Cersei, I’m really sorry.”

She still looked like she wanted to drown him, angry and all the more beautiful. She got to her feet and stormed off.

Jaime, his cheek still hot and hurting, was suddenly very cold.

 

For three days his heart would bang hard in his chest whenever Tywin glanced at him, expecting to be called to the study and reprimanded for his actions. On the fourth day, Tywin announced over breakfast that he was to fly back to the city and would be gone for the weekend but return by Sunday evening.

He exchanged a look with his brother. Tyrion mouthed, Yeah right.

“I’ll be happy to drive Jaime.”

He frowned and looked up and down the table. Who had spoken?

“I didn’t know you’re interested in history,” Gerion told Jaime.

“I’m interested in history,” Tyrion chimed in. He frowned at his brother. “You’ve never mentioned that before.”

“As I was saying,” Aunt Cersei said, her voice a little louder. “I’ve made arrangements with the museum for Jaime to view the dragon eggs there. The boy has prattled on and on about wanting to see them.”

“Can I come?” Tyrion asked.

“Limited audience only, I’m sorry to say,” Cersei told him. “Next time.”

“That’s, uh, good of you, sister,” Tywin said to her. “Jaime, I expect you to be on your best behaviour.”

Jaime, about to demand what was happening, shut his mouth when Aunt Cersei shut him a warning look. And because he didn’t want to disappoint his father, he kept quiet.

A servant went to Jaime’s room an hour later to tell him that “Ms. Cersei waits in the garage.” Still confused but determined to get answer, he went to her.

Aunt Cersei is leaning against her car, a sleek, fast Valyrion in dragon’s blood-red. Her golden hair hangs loose down her shoulders and she’s wearing a white dress without sleeves, with buttons from the top of the collar all the way down to the skirt that ends above her knees. The top three buttons are undone, giving Jaime a glimpse of white lace, and the last three buttons of the skirt show her inner thighs. Her sandals are also white, the high heels making her legs look longer. Her nails match the red of the car.

“You took your time,” she remarked, annoyed once again “Get in.”

“I have no interest in history or dragon’s eggs or anything related,” Jaime pointed out. “Why did you lie to my Father?”

“I need to get out of here.” She answered, not denying his accusation.

“Then why not just say you wanted to go shopping or whatever is it that you girls do?”

She glared at him. “Considering I’m doing you a favour rather than telling your father how you insulted me the other day, I’m surprised at the complete absence of groveling. Don’t lie, Jaime. You need to get out of here too. I’ve been watching you. Unless you’re having too much of a blast playing charades,” she mocked.

But Jaime still couldn’t understand why she had to lie. “Couldn’t you have just said you wanted to go out and needed my help?”

“Are you getting in the car or not?”

He got in.

Aunt Cersei didn’t take him to the museum, to a shop, a store, or any place in the town of Lannisport. She drove in circles, clearly with no destination. Except for a quick stop at a self-service station where she ordered Jaime to get out and get the car filled, they just drove for hours.

It was early in the afternoon when Aunt Cersei appeared to have a destination in mind. She rolled the windows down, letting in sharp, almost violent gusts of air from the Sunset Sea whip their hair and faces. From afar, Casterly Rock looked like a Lego set. We’re all so small and insignificant in the end, he thought and his stomach twisted at its possible consequences.

All of a sudden, the car jerked to a stop. Jaimed would have toppled forward if not for the seatbelt. He glanced at his aunt, her face sharp and her features more defined with the anger brewing inside her. She had to be—the white knuckles on the wheel, the way her jaw was set, the look in her eyes that was hard and merciless. She looked cruel but still beautiful. She let go of the wheel then let herself out of the car.

She stood at the cliff, her back to him, probably gazing at her shoes or at the sea, Jaime didn’t know. He was dizzy from being cooped up in the car and when he got out, the blood rushed fast down his legs, giving them the sensation of a thousand pinpricks. He leaned heavily against the car, which was searing to the touch. He hissed and leaped away, the sound of his distress drawing her attention.  
As he rubbed at the red spot on his arm, she approached him. Against the sun, the curve of her body was outlined, making the lace of her bra pronounced and also what seemed to be a tiny bow in the middle of her panties. Jaime looked away, feeling that familiar tightness in his shorts the closer she came. He hadn’t jerked off in weeks, too distressed and tired of everything happening around him. 

He had seen pretty girls, had seen them looking at him and he’d even made out with a few in parties, grabbed the breasts of a couple in more parties. Yet there was a strange, sharp ache in his cock, drawing his balls unbearably tight. When his aunt was close enough for him to scent her expensive perfume, he was hard as a rock.

“Show me. Where were you hurt,” her voice was soft but still commanding. He flushed and showed her his arm. To his shock, she ran her thumb across and around it.

“If your mother were here, she’ll have ointment and a kiss,” she said, rubbing the burn with a hand that was softer and smoother than silk. 

“Please don’t talk about her,” Jaime whispered, turning his face away from her.

“Whether or not we talk about her she’s not coming back.”

That fucking hurt. Jaime jerked away and demanded, “I don’t feel well. I want to go home.”

“You still owe me for your rude behaviour. I can’t believe Tywin lets you get away with a mouth like that.” She seethed. “You have too much of Gerion in you, Jaime.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

She didn’t answer. Instead she leaned against the car beside him.

“You know, I’m not as bitchy as the family and tabloids say,” she said. “I fight for what I deserve. If people did that more rather than mope and stuff their faces with donuts, the world won’t be crowded with shrinks eager to diagnose how wrong we are and keep us drugged up and terrified to keep their wallets and bellies fat. You’ve heard about me, haven’t you? What I’m supposedly like?” Her grin was crooked and her eyes cool.

Jaime shrugged. “I don’t know you well.”

“But I feel like you don’t like me, Jaime. I’ve not done anything bad to you, have I?”

“I’ve seen the way you look at Tyrion.” He said, looking at her. “That tells me what kind of person you are.”

“You don’t know,” she said simply. “You’re young. What are you supposed to know?”

“I’m fifteen years old!”

“And almost sixteen. A man, so you say.” She crossed her arms. “You don’t know that I had a baby, that he had your brother’s deformity and worse. His lungs were too small and his heart had a hole. He lived for a year before he died, blue and black with all those tubes around him and in him.” She kicked at a pebble. “If I look at your brother in a way that you don’t approve, it’s because I’m remembering my baby boy. My husband—the first one—he divorced me for that. Claimed I had intentionally deceived him by not telling him the truth of what my genes might carry. I lost my money and the man I loved because he was able to prove I lied. I didn't know it was the fault of my genes until I was subjected to a test.”

“Father never mentioned anything.”

“Lannisters have always found ways to make the truth the way they want it to be. We’ve long proven that truth is malleable. It is what we say it is.”

That made Jaime uncomfortable. It sounded like lying. It sounded like manipulation.

“Now the tabloids are saying that I’m a greedy heiress just because I refuse to accept the terms of the prenup. My soon-to-be-ex expects to simply pay off his little wife about an eighth of what she deserves just so he can keep fucking that whore. Can you believe it?” Her laugh was brittle. “Me, the loyal wife, society dictates I should simply let my husband cast me aside so he can fuck somebody younger, more beautiful. Like he’d done nothing wrong.”

“But you’re beautiful, Aunt Cersei.” Jaime protested. “You’re the most beautiful woman I know.”

Seriously? Jaime liked Rhaegar, he was friendly and taught him all about rock bands, taught him how to play the guitar. He was a cool guy. He couldn’t match the nice man he knew to the liar his aunt was painting him to be. And how could he choose somebody more beautiful than her? It was unthinkable. 

She looked at him. “You’re a sweet boy, Jaime.”

“I’m not a boy.”

“In a while you won’t be.” She tilted her head as she looked at him assessingly. “Maybe no more. Death forces people to grow in ways they don’t want.”

He didn’t want her talking about his mother, not when she was talking to him like an adult, not when his cock was still hard and aching in his pants.

“You really are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Aunt Cersei.” He said earnestly. 

This time her smile reached her eyes. If it got her smiling like that, Jaime thought, he'd say it more often. 

 

Hotter days followed, and in Jaime’s pants, a furnace. He was hard and aching at random moments during the day. Since everyone was bustling about on every inch of Casterly Rock, he confined his release to late night viewings of porn videos on his laptop. He kept a chair under a doorknob since it didn’t lock—none of the doors upstairs did. His eyes would dart between the door and the screen, where a blond angel with green eyes and full tits sucked on a cock or spread her twat to be fucked by either fingers or cock. He would come, muffling his groans, his hand rough as it rubbed up and down his shaft as it jetted come on the sheets, on his knees.

Aunt Cersei was nicer to him since the day they went for a drive, smiling at him and inviting him to the beach with her. He would refuse going anywhere in just trunks or shorts because he couldn’t predict when he sprang wood. He thought she would go to the beach without him but she lounged in the pool instead. The pool that was right under his window.

She wore bikinis, tiny ones, either red or white. As the others splashed and played in the pool, she was on a lounge chair, sunglasses on, rubbing sunblock on her slim arms, down her legs. Gerion once splashed at her, leaving her soaked and seething, screaming for his head. Aunt Cersei had stood up, her breasts swinging, nipples hard and poking against the fabric of her bikini. Jaime groaned as he struggled to give himself relief, keeping his eyes on her breasts and legs.

One day, he was at their home gym, struggling to lift weights when Aunt Cersei came in, dressed in something white and tight. Her smile was friendly and he had to remind himself to look at her face and not at her breasts, not at her butt. When she bent on the yoga mat, he nearly dropped the bar he was holding and couldn’t run out fast enough.

The day that the dirty details of her divorce from Rhaegar Targaryen bloodied the dailies, a knock came on Jaime’s door. He was sketching Casterly Rock from a photograph when he called out enter. To his surprise, Aunt Cersei let herself in.

Even when sad she was lovely, the Maiden made flesh. The dress she was wearing was white and clung to her curves. She closed the door and said, “He’s really leaving me.”

“I’m sorry, Aunt Cersei.” He said, standing up as she went to him. 

Instinct had him throwing her arms around her as she pressed against him, her hot breath and soft, mewling sobs hitting him. He was taller than her, her head only grazed past his shoulder. His shoulders may be bony but they were broad and would get more so as he grew older. She clung to him, her slim frame finding support against his chest. 

“You’re beautiful,” he said, running his hand down her silky hair, down her back, her shoulders. “He’s wrong.”

Her hip brushed against his thigh. Jaime stiffened, wincing at the familiar hardness growing. She looked up at him and he held his breath, expecting anger, disgust. Instead, she nodded and said, “You are telling me the truth. I thought it was just words.”

Jaime gasped as her small hand suddenly reached inside his shorts and cupped his cock. She smiled at him. “Your hair is soft. Your skin is soft but you’re hard. Here, you are a man,” she whispered, beginning to rub him, her thumb stroking the tip and spreading what he knew was the bead that gave his cock the moisture it needed so it wouldn’t chafe. 

“Aunt Cersei,” he started to say but she shushed him.

“Cersei,” she whispered against his lips. Then kissed him.

Jaime had kissed and been kissed but not like this. His hands gripped her face tightly while she continued to roll her hips against him and stroke his cock in that really good, unbelievable way. He pushed his tongue inside her mouth and she made a sound that was half a protest, half a moan. She tore her mouth away. “Slow,” she told him. “Slow.”

He nodded and kissed her again, harder. He never had anything this good.

Cersei sighed, either in impatience or amusement, he didn’t care. His word was her mouth, her hand on his cock. Her other hand fondled his balls and he gasped, stiffening. She laughed and continued her ministrations, removing herself from more of his kisses but keeping her hands around him. Jaime continued to kiss her, her cheek, her throat, her shoulder. He found the zipper for her dress, pulled it until it fell and exposed her breasts. And gods above, Cersei’s breasts were unlike the watermelon jugs he’d seen. They were full but natural. Soft. Very soft. He cupped them eagerly and she hissed. He caught her lips and started kissing her there again, pushing his tongue inexpertly inside. His hold on her breasts tightened as he felt the increasing tension below his stomach. 

He felt rather than saw her smirk as she squeezed him and touched a spot lower and somewhere behind but not that far back. He groaned, loud and strong, as he came. 

It seemed endless, his semen hitting her dress, her hands, the floor. By the time it was over, he had collapsed against the wall, the cold expanse doing nothing in dissipating the heat from his body. He breathed fast and harshly, watching through clouded eyes as his aunt wiped her hands on his blanket and righted her dress. As Jaime continued to lean against the wall, she went to his dresser, found a brush and brought it to her hair. It had been tousled by his hands. She saw a box of tissues and wiped her lipstick smeared around her mouth. When she deemed herself perfect again, she looked at Jaime, staring at his face, his shirt adhered by sweat to his chest, his cock long and limp between his thighs. 

He didn’t know how and what happened. “Aunt Cersei—“ he started to say, grabbing his shorts from where they were puddled at his ankles and pulling them up.

“Cersei,” she reminded him. She went to the door and glanced back at him. “Tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“My door has a lock.” 

 

That night was the first time they fucked. Jaime had to fight for control as Cersei disrobed in front of him, proud in her beauty. She told him to touch her, told him to get on the bed. He couldn’t believe that someone this beautiful could want him, wanted him this way and telling him to do things to her. Jaime was awed and awkward the whole time, watching as the tendons in Cersei’s throat stood out as she heaved and strained above him. He was unable to hold back a groan as she slowly sank onto him, moving her hips up and down until she was fully seated. She clamped a hand around his mouth and hissed for him to be quiet and she began to move, the tight walls of her cunt stroking his cock. 

As the fucked and slept through the night, Jaime was conflicted. It felt so good, why did it have to be wrong? Sure, she was his aunt but it wasn’t like she was his mother, or his sister. And he only saw her during vacations and other gatherings. She was a stranger. But any confusion fled from his mind whenever Cersei reached for him again and told him to fuck her. 

Their affair would last for more than a decade. Though they were only together for mere minutes, only allowed dark, awkward fucks, they were still the best in Jaime’s opinion, and he came as hard as he did that first time. He treasured the days when they could slip off the face of the earth and fuck in an actual bed, fuck slowly or fast, but most of all, sleep together.

Fifteen years later, Jaime was thirty and Cersei forty-five. Age had only deepened the impact of her beauty. Her ivory skin was still soft and luminous, her tits full. Though they were not as firm as before, he loved them, loved burying his face between them, loved how soft they had become. She had been depressed when her menopause came early but she eventually realized that it had one good benefit: they no longer needed to worry about birth control. For the first time in his life, Jaime was able to sink his cock in her cunt without the hateful barrier of latex between them.

Cersei married her third husband, Jon Umber, when Jaime was eighteen, breaking his heart. It was her promise that nothing had to change between them that mended it, and she kept her word. Love was what they had, she told him and he believed that. She had his heart from the moment she threw herself in his arms weeping over Rhaegar. There was no other way to feel toward her, even when she was his aunt.

Jaime hated Jon Umber, who was a bear of a man and looked uncouth despite his wealth from his oil empire in the north. He was sickened with how his paws roamed over Cersei’s delicate form during their reception. But she would catch his eye and they would exchange a look only they understood: You are the one I love. What he hated above all was he took Cersei far away. She would visit Westeros when he was out of the country, picking Jaime up from Kings University. In a faraway motel, they would fuck until the sheets were slick with their come. He would vow his love for her again and again and she would smile and kiss him.

His roommate, Bronn, wondered out loud why Jaime refused to introduce his ‘long-distance girlfriend.’ That was the story Jaime put out in order to top the barrage of females panting after him and eager to get in his pants. Every time Bronn taunted him about it, Jaime would flush and just mutter that he’d introduce them the next time they chatted again. He often ‘scheduled’ it whenever Bronn was out. 

When Jaime was twenty-seven, Jon and Cersei divorced, sharing custody of their children, Tyrek and Selyne. Despite knowing that it could never happen, Jaime asked Cersei to marry him and run away to Braavos. She had laughed and turned to him.

He was leaning against the headboard, blankets at his waist, still tired but very satisfied from their afternoon fuck. Cersei, her wrap dress still open, stood before him. The tips of her breasts were red from his kisses, her waist still slim despite children. Between her slender thighs was a cluster of curls as golden as the one on her head, full but trimmed. He smirked at the red marks of his beard on her thighs.

“Such a romantic fool,” she told him, shaking her head as if disappointed. “Maybe I should fuck that notion out of your head once and for all.”

“Maybe you should.”

She sucked his cock as if to unman him and he came hard, barely giving her enough warning before she removed her mouth. He hissed as she pumped him in his hand, helping him towards the hard gush of his release. She called him a romantic fool again, tied her dress closed and left his apartment. 

He knew she meant nothing by it but it burrowed in his mind and writhed and crawled like a worm. “You’re a romantic fool, you’re a romantic fool,” her laughing voice transforming into a cruel taunt until it was a cackle. Yet he loved her, she was the only one he could imagine loving, she was all he wanted: Cersei, beautiful, passionate, always sure with what she wanted. All other women dimmed when compared to her, no matter their age, the size of their breasts, the smallness of their waist, no matter how they were willing to be enslaved by him. Cersei was all that mattered.

One morning, Tyrion went to Jaime’s apartment. The brothers would have breakfast together once a week. Both of them worked at Lannister Industries, the family company. Each were being groomed to take over one day though it was clear Jaime was eyed for the CEO position, one that Tywin currently held, and Tyrion would be serving a secondary role. Despite owning the company, the brothers were expected to work longer hours than their employees. Since there was little time to bitch about this in the office, they did it over breakfast.  
Jaime winced, biting his lip as his piss burned. He hissed and grunted as he finished peeing, shaking himself dry before zipping up. His facial expression was still sour when he returned to the kitchen where Tyrion was helping himself to sugar donuts, cereal and coffee. 

Catching sight of it, he remarked, “What’s the matter? Realized you’re not the handsome brother at last?”

He gingerly sat down and refilled his coffee. “My piss burns like dragonfyre. It’s been going on for days.”

“Should have that checked. Can’t have your cock falling off or the Lannister legacy depends on me.”

But Jaime didn’t like going to doctor. When two more days passed and his piss burned even worse, he threw on a t-shirt and sweats and went to the hospital. It was really fun aiming more of his burning piss into a cup and dropping his pants to get swabbed in places he’d rather not think about. Then he was told to come back after an hour for the results.

One hour later, the doctor told him the bad news. 

Ten minutes later, he called Cersei and demanded to see her.

 

Jaime swept past the doorman of Cersei’s building, ignoring his polite greeting. He had only been there once, during some anniversary bullshit held by Jon Umber. He punched the floor number and was ready to rage and scream by the time the elevator brought him to the door of her penthouse. 

He knocked on the door and a butler let him in, once again greeting him. Jaime ignored it and demanded to see his aunt. She was having a massage but was expecting Jaime.

One look at Jaime’s stormy face and the masseuse hastily excused herself. Cersei sighed, wrapped the towel around her body and shot him a look of great impatience. 

“What, Jaime? This better be important,” she said.

Fuck it all, Jaime thought, seeing her for what she was for the first time in his life. Beautiful, yes, but there was no warmth in her eyes, she was regarding him like the help in need of a favour. She had always looked at him that way but he thought it was because he was young and couldn’t do what she demanded perfectly. The realization gave Jaime a rare bout of calm in the raging sea of his anger.

“Who are you fucking?”

Cersei looked startled. “What kind of question is that?”

Oh, gods, she was lying to him. “Who the hell have you been fucking?” He shouted.

Cersei hissed and leaped off the massage table and locked the door. She glared at Jaime. “How dare you ask me that question? I’m in the middle of my massage—“

“Again, who the hell have you been fucking?”

“You!” She yelled. “You’re the only one I fuck!”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“What brought this on? What happened?”

Jaime growled, “I have chlamydia.”

She glared at him. “Who have you been fucking?”

“Only you. _Aunt Cersei._ ”

“Liar.”

“I’m faithful to you. I expected the same from you. You’ve been divorced for three years now. You told me I’m the only cock you’ve had in your cunt besides your husbands’. You’re not married now. Again. Who else are you fucking?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she whispered, “It was a mistake, Jaime.”

_Bloody Seven Hells._

She went to him, her hand touching his chest. Jaime flinched and slapped her hand away. She cried out and went to slap him with her other hand. He grabbed it flung her away from him, sending her against the massage table, dislodging the towel from her body. His eyes were hard emeralds as she looked at him, pained and whimpering.

“Jaime, you’re the only one I love. Not them.”

“Them.” He was going to get sick all over the floor. _"Them?"_

“Don’t do this to us.”

His eyes raked her naked body, beautiful, slicked by oil, the only body he’d fucked, the body that had fucked with his mind for years. His face was full of hate as he stared at her tears.

“It’s done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime is thirty-seven years old during the beginning of the flashback installments. Parts 1 and 2, which take place in the current time, place him at thirty-nine years old.   
> ____  
> I shuffled the Lannister family tree a bit. Gerion and Cersei are twins!   
> And Cersei was married to Roose Bolton. God, I can not imagine any other character who clearly deserve each other.


	6. Lost

Two days since Jaime’s confession, he emerged from the turquoise sea with his snorkel mask pushed up his forehead like a headband, his skin golden and tan. Water dripped from the stubble darkening the hard line of his jaw and made the hair on his chest slick. His grin was carefree, cocky, yet boyish too. Brienne wondered if she saw his smile as such because of what she knew, or despite what had happened, Jaime still retained some of the innocence stolen from him.

The Cove of the Sapphire Maiden was a small, quiet corner of the beach. Brienne used to spend the whole day there just swimming and snorkeling when she was younger. The latter was an alternative she proposed due to her inability to get up on the surfboard. With her current condition, it was a strenuous activity. Jaime hadn’t been disappointed, to her relief, and he seemed to enjoy just lazing by the water.

Today they had packed sandwiches, beer, fruit. Neither spoke that being outside gave them the breathing space needed. Jaime had expected Brienne to withdraw after his confession because she had looked at him, speechless, after he unloaded the secret he carried all these years. He expected her to skirt around him, to avoid him afterward. Not to mention that incident by the tub—the feel of her tongue thrusting shyly toward him and the surprising softness of her skin were sensations that couldn’t easily be forgotten. But the next morning, she knocked on his door and said, with a shy grin, that though he was an honoured guest, he was expected to contribute and hauled him out to help her with breakfast. She didn’t raise the subject but what mattered was she treated him as before. There was no pity nor judgment on her face.

Brienne was the last person to judge despite a good part of her life subjecting her to cruel opinions based solely on her looks. She had been horrified with what Jaime told her—still was—but she appreciated his trust. She just wished to know of a better way to deal with it. It seemed to ask anything about it was to trigger a land mine and their friendship just about survived what had happened by the bathtub. Her lips still burned and she could still feel his fingers gently pushing inside.

As she finished getting their lunch ready, a tall shadow loomed over her. Too late did she realize Jaime’s intention. He shook his hair, drenching her despite her protests and shrieks to drown him. So he continued. She lunged for him, lips curled in a snarl, and send them both crashing hard on the sand.

“You’re a right bastard, Jaime!” She growled, batting away his arms and catching his wrists in her large hands. He was laughing and so was she but she was stronger. She flattened his arms beside his head and gave him a disapproving look. He winked at her challengingly. She narrowed her eyes.

“You didn’t join me in the water,” he pointed out, not struggling at all from how she had trapped his arms and her thighs pressed against his hips. 

“I told you I’m not in the mood. And I’ve been seeing the same fish and corals for years. I doubt if they missed me,” she said, letting him go and turning away. She straightened the shirt she wore—his—over her bathing suit. “Come on now, I’m starving.”

They feasted on crabmeat sandwiches made by Selwyn. They sat facing the ocean, chewing quietly. She snuck a glance at Jaime, wondering what he could be thinking about. If he regretted telling her, if he wished he wasn’t here. She flushed, once again assailed by the guilt that would hit her ever since she asked him to come for her. He had a life back in the mainland but here he was, eating sandwiches with her, wearing water on his skin, looking as if there was no other place he’d rather be. She turned her attention back to the water, the half-eaten sandwich held loosely. Noticing her distraction, Jaime spoke up. 

“You don’t have to think about going back if you’re not yet ready.”

She lowered her head. “I’m not thinking that. I should but I just can’t.” Gods, she couldn’t. She was home, and the longer she was here, the farther the city was from her mind. To go back would mean living in that mausoleum again. She wondered if Oberyn had replaced the sheets, thrown out the mattress. Going back would feel like reliving that nightmare again. She needed to put the sea between her and that fear. For reasons she still didn’t know yet, it was Jaime she had asked rather than Margaery. She had not thought to ask Oberyn at all, still angry and betrayed. 

“Why are you here?” She asked, glancing at him. “I know I asked but there’s a lot that should keep you from being there. How—How could you leave all that just to be here?”

He gave her a sideways look. Like her, he was staring at the sea too. “You needed me,” he said, after a moment of just the crashing sea and the occasional twitter of birds around them.

“And maybe I need you too,” he added. “Don’t know if you remember this, when we just started hanging out. I said something like I found it easy telling you things—things not even my brother knows?”

She nodded.

“I’ve never believed in fate, I think I mentioned that too, but I’m beginning to think the people we meet serve a far greater purpose than we can think of. Until you, I never wanted anyone to know about my aunt,” he said, putting his sandwich away and taking a pull from his beer. “There’s something about you,” he said, looking at her now, eyes squinting because the sun was bright. “We both had terrible things happen to us but, I don’t know, my—what happened to me—doesn’t seem so awful now. I think I trusted you from the moment you stood in my shop dripping and ruining my floors.”

A compliment with a side serving of snark, she thought, rolling her eyes and dragging a small laugh from him. Then, looking at her lap, she asked, “You’ve never told anyone in your family?”

“Lannisters are all about protecting their golden image. I’m already the disappointing son because I left the business and have not seen any of them, save for my brother, for seven years. I didn’t stop what happened. I’m not going to shit on everyone’s life.”

“You were fifteen!” 

“And taller and stronger than my aunt. I could have told her no.”

“You can’t blame yourself, Jaime. You were. . .gods, you were torn about your mother. She took advantage. She used you and manipulated you for years. How is any of that your fault?”

“Wench, I was young and stupid but not that young and certainly not that stupid. I knew it was wrong but it felt good. I always knew it was wrong but I didn’t want it to stop. Maybe it’s because she fucked with my mind but I had more than enough time to end it. I didn’t.” He sighed, found a pebble and hurled it toward the waves. “If she hadn’t cheated on me, I would. . .we’d be. . .”

Brienne froze. “She’s your aunt. She abused you.”

“I was with her for fifteen years, Brienne. She was all I wanted. If not for her betrayal, I’m sure we’d still be together.” His smile did not reach his eyes. 

“And you wouldn’t be here,” she murmured but he heard her.

“No,” he agreed. “But maybe your husband.”

She sighed and hugged her knees to her chest.

“He’s been calling me again,” she confessed. The morning following Jaime’s confession, she had been awakened by Oberyn’s call on her cellphone. She was alert despite the late night and had just stared at his name flashing on the screen until it stopped. Three times a day he would call. Did her Dad know? But he hadn’t asked her, and she didn’t want to bring up Oberyn again, not when her feelings towards what he hadn’t done were still too fresh. 

“I don’t answer. He won’t stop.”

Jaime looked stunned. “Fuck the gods, wench, I know you hate him but you couldn’t take one call?”

“I can’t take another apology from him. It won’t do anything.” She rested her chin on her knees.

“He cares for you,” Jaime was surprised to find himself struggling with the words. “At some point you have to put the man out of his misery.”

“Not today.”

“In a way, I think I can understand,” Jaime threw another pebble. “I haven’t. . .I haven’t seen my aunt since that day. I know what she did was abuse. But I think I’ll always be fucked up about her. She was my first and everything. You just can’t shake off someone like that as if she’s dust on your boots.”

Oberyn was her first and everything too. Maybe this was why a small part of her longed to hear his voice while the rest wanted to hurt him with all she had.

“So. . .” Brienne cleared her throat, curiosity egging her on. “It’s still her? Only her?”

He chuckled bitterly. “Not for my lack of trying.”  
Brienne looked stunned and he shrugged. “It’s not that I haven’t fucked anyone after her. I have. There was even or two that I thought I could fall in love with. It’s become this sword hanging over my head, what happened. I can’t completely be with anyone until she knows but those one or two women, I couldn’t imagine them knowing this about me. I was scared to lose them that way so I lost them in a way that’s less painful and probably more honest. I said I didn’t love her. Didn’t love them.”

“You can’t love someone without trust,” Brienne pointed out. “You didn’t trust them.”

“Maybe.”

“But you told me.”

“I told you. There’s something about you.”

This time she shrugged. “Maybe you’ve never been with anyone who listens. And I do.” She quirked a small smile. “I’m probably the first.”  
He grinned back. “You did complain I talk too much.”

“Yeah. You don’t know when to shut up, do you?” 

They went out for dinner one night later. Or more like, Selwyn shooed them out good-naturedly, complaining that it didn’t look good when the parent stayed out late having too much of a good time while the daughter remained at home. 

She took Jaime to a dive bar, promising the best beer in the isle and the fattest lobsters. As they ate, some of Selwyn’s friends dropped by their table, kissing her loudly on the cheek and looking at Jaime with open curiosity. She knew Selwyn had told them about her miscarriage but not about Jaime. Not that she cared. She introduced him as he was, her friend, come to visit. To his credit, Jaime was friendly and charming, and within minutes of knowing him, the suspicions her dad’s friends had were gone. 

They staggered out of the bar a couple of hours later, drunk and holding on to each other, giggling like children. It wasn’t clear who was holding up whom—Brienne who was taller but clearly with legs that were practically useless since she couldn’t walk two steps without the threat of an unfortunate fall or Jaime who could walk a straight line but was laughing so hard he was just as unsteady.

“Can’t—Can’t—“ Brienne wheezed out, leaning heavily against Jaime while he held him around the waist. “Can’t drive!”

“Sand to sober up?” Jaime gasped between gusts of laughter, clinging to her shoulders. It didn’t make any sense at all but their laugh got louder. Through combined efforts, they managed to get to the beach ahead of them before collapsing in a tangle of limbs and laughter on the sand. Her hair fanned his face and he coughed explosively as a strand found its way down his throat. The force of his coughing dislodged her and she helped him turn over, wheezing and gasping for air until he could breathe normally again. She sighed and sank on her back on the sand, her head and body too heavy and warm from the alcohol, the sand cool and very soft under her.

She felt rather than heard Jaime lie down next to her. She moved closer until they could hold hands. He was warm. Together, they stared at the night sky splashed with stars.

“I shouldn’t feel this good,” she whispered.

“Haven’t felt this good in ages,” he whispered back.

Suddenly giggling again, she asked, “Why are we whispering?”

He was laughing too. “The fuck I know.”

She nuzzled the sand. “It feels good where we are now, maybe that’s it.” Though on the sand, she felt as if she were floating, safe. Like nothing could ever touch her. It was as if the past weeks never happened. 

And because she was drunk, maybe, because of how out of sorts she felt, her mind wandered to possibilities. Of what might have beens if not for the choices she made early in her life. She looked at Jaime.

His profile faced her. Farther or closer, he looked like a god. She wondered at the magic and genetics that combined to make his forehead, his nose, his jaw, to be defined and angled just right. Even the growth of stubble up and down his cheeks was perfect. She turned her body and this prompted him to look at her, see her watching him. 

“Your eyes,” he whispered, “are so blue.”

She frowned and it made her head hurt. Clearing her face, she retorted, “They are blue.”

“Nothing like any blue I’ve seen before.” 

For some reason, it made her hugely happy. She burrowed closer to him and he lifted his arm so he could hold her close. She felt him kissing her on the forehead and a thought occurred to her. Did he know he was holding her and not someone else? But she couldn’t bring herself to ask, too greedy for the warmth of his embrace to risk leaving it. 

Safe, she thought as his lips continue to move and forth her forehead. Nothing can touch me.

Then she angled her head to look at him. Clear, green eyes stared back.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

“Kissing you,” he replied. “You’re my friend.”

“None of my friends have kissed me like that.”

“On the forehead?”

“Like you do.” She pushed herself up a little so she was pressed against his chest. “But why would you kiss me? Why not just hold me?”  
He huffed. “Wench, are you complaining?”

“I’m too drunk to complain or even make sense. I’m going with the first thing in my mind. Well, not really.” She put her head on his chest and asked, clutching at his shirt, “Do you think I’m her?”

“Her? What do you mean—oh.” Jaime’s lips faltered and she raised herself again to see. She was beginning to get dizzy from her movements.

“It’s okay if you do.” She whispered. “She’s dust you can’t shake off.”

“N-No. I’m not.” 

“It’s okay,” she insisted. 

“No, it’s fucking not. She’s bad for me. Why would you want me to imagine her when there’s you?”

“Stop.” Talking was giving her some of her sanity back. Brienne jerked away and sat up. “You shouldn’t say things like that. I’m—“

“I know.” Jaime grunted, still lying down and glaring at the sky. “You’re married.”

There it was. The truth that held them apart.

“Other women would use your situation as an opportunity to get back at their husbands,” he continued bitterly. “Just not you. Fuck, why not you? Why are you so goddamned different from everyone else?”

Suddenly, he lurched to his feet, sending sand right onto her hair, her chest. As she gasped, he stormed down the beach, his strides fast, if a trifle still shaky. But Jaime Lannister was stubborn and determined to get away. 

“Jaime!” She called, groaning as she forced herself to get up. Sand was in her shoes so she kicked them off and ran after him. “Jaime, hey!”

Her long legs soon brought her jogging abreast him. She reached out to touch his shoulder but he pushed her hand away. Annoyed, she pushed him back, but not to send him sprawling on his ass in the sand. But that’s what happened, Jaime on the sand, grunting and glaring at her.

“Stop coming after me!” He suddenly yelled.

“What are you talking about?” She shot back. “I’m your friend!”

“Oh, yeah?” He yanked her down until she was on her knees before him. “Let’s see how friendly you are after I do this.”

Brienne squawked in shock and outrage as his mouth crashed down on hers, hard, angry, as if to punish her. She quickly shoved him but his grip was steel and his kiss had destroyed whatever little defense she had from the first time. Soon, she was kissing him back, her mouth frantic and urgent, her fingers buried in his hair while his arms kept her to his body. As her left hand drifted to his chest, she was reminded of the rings she wore there. Gasping, she drew sharply away from him.

They glared at each other, panting.

“I lied,” Jaime suddenly said. “My brother knows. About Cersei and me. I told him after I’d developed a liking for ice-cold bitches. He said I liked unavailable women. I thought it was ridiculous until now. You’re now bitch, wench, but you are completely unavailable. Knowing that you’ve only fucked your husband—hells. You’re practically a virgin. All the more why I want you.” He let out a frustrated, loud groan and added. “You’ve been nothing but good to me yet all I want is to fuck you senseless. Give you the fuck you deserve when your husband clearly doesn’t realize what he’s got.”

Then, unbelievably, he started to rise again. Panicking, Brienne blurted out, “Don’t leave me again!”

“I have to. Don’t you see? I’m no friend of yours. I haven’t been since I kissed you. I know it’s wrong and stupid but I want you. Being with you is driving me crazy and now that we’re drunk and have the perfect excuse—“ he let out another yell, toward the ocean this time. “Fuck the gods! You should stay far away from me, Brienne. I’m no good. I’m no friend of yours.”

He turned but to her relief, he didn’t walk away. Brienne got up and went to him. Every inch of him was tensed, ready to spring. Wisely, she stood just enough to feel his safe but not close enough to be kissed.

“Jaime, I—“

“I want to fuck you,” he growled, turning to look at her. His eyes swept her from head to toe, his stare both hungry and contemptuous. “I want my cock in you and I want your legs around me. That’s the kind of friend I am, Brienne. I trusted you, you trust me, and I intend to repay it with my cock.”

She flinched at his vulgarity but said, “This isn’t you. You’re drunk.”

“I don’t lie when drunk.” His eyes lingered on her legs. “Another step, wench, and those legs better be around me all night.”

She shook her head and stepped back. “That’s not happening, Jaime.”

He looked wounded but he nodded. “Good. That’s the first thing to make sense this night.”

“We’re friends.”

He threw up his hands. “Haven’t you been listening?”

“We’re both so broken we don’t know what to do anymore,” she said. “But your way is not. I’m not going to break my vows to my husband. And we’re not going to fuck up what we have.”

“We have nothing.”

“We’re friends!” She repeated tearfully.

Jaime sighed loudly. “Ah, shit, wench. Don’t cry. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then stop talking about how you’ll fuck things up, about what you want to do to me! I don’t want you like that. And you deserve someone. . .someone who would love you, all of you. I’m married. That’s not going to be me. I’m your friend, Jaime, but you deserve so much more.” In the silver moonlight, her eyes were an unearthly, stunning blue. “If we fuck, don’t you realize what kind of life that is? That’s just. . .your aunt again. You should be loved openly. In the light,” she finished softly. Their eyes met. 

Jaime looked pained. “That will never happen to the likes of me.”

“Yes it will.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Why not?”

“I’m messed up about women, wench. What woman would be willing to work with that, or accept me—all of me?” 

“You just haven’t met her yet. She’s out there. Probably thinking the same thing. As broken as you are. Or more.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to be with anyone as damaged as I am. Or worse.”

“I would like to believe that love makes the impossible happen.”

“You really are a romantic,” he said sarcastically.

“And you’re a fucking cynic,” she shot back. 

“`We don’t get to choose who we love,’” He mocked, throwing her words back at her. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Or is it how it was okay for you that I pretend you’re her. What the hell was that?”

“Oh, like wanting to fuck me and thinking to repay my trust with your cock are not as stupid,” she snapped. “I’m drunk. If you’re an honest drunk, I ramble about nonsense when drunk. It was sick.” 

He suddenly laughed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Gods, wench.”

“I can’t believe the things you said,” she told him, still keeping her distance.

“And I can’t believe you were unswayed,” he retorted. But he looked relieved. “I guess we’re really friends, huh?”

“We always have been. You wanted to fuck things up.”

“This time, I didn’t.” He smiled at her. “That makes you the first, you know.”

“The first to say no to you?”

“No. My first true friend.”

Yet Brienne would wonder for a long time if she had been wrong to keep her vows and save their friendship. She would realize later refusing him that night on the beach had just delayed the inevitable.

Two years later, she was once again in his shop, wet with rain, and begging him to fuck her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of the installment should clue you in on the state of Jaime and Brienne's thinking during this time. They're both seriously messed up and confused. Hence why their feelings go from zero to a hundred and sixty, why they say one thing one minute and think very differently the next. Their relationship has always been. . .well, complicated. And complex. 
> 
> Stay tuned for Part 7. We'll be going back to the present. We will also find out what made Brienne change her mind about having Jaime.

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline for this chapter is based on Parts 1 and 2, which take place in the present time.


End file.
